Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2008 16:02

From: Robert Stevens

Subject: Interference with property

The decision seems right to me. It is just like any other public law wrong. If a licence to run a taxi cab is denied when it shouldn't have been, or if a prohibition on moving cattle to market is imposed when it should not have been, the public body commits no private wrong. In so doing the public body isn't intending to exercise any liberty to use the taxi or cows which it does not have. There is no claim for damages as a result. Damnum sine injuria.

In fact there was a claim for compensation here: albeit one you had to exercise within 21 days, which the owners had not.

As for the football example, I'd have to check more carefully but my recollection is that the owner of the football only has a licence to enter and retake if the ball is there without his fault. (See Devoe v Long [1951] 1 DLR 203.) If that is correct, the landowner can, if he likes, grant the licence to use in the terms you suggest, but is not converting them. The landowner would be committing a tort if he started playing with the ball himself.

Welton was rather different as there the defendant assumed responsibility to advise on alterations necessary, which the plaintiff relied upon – i.e. it was a Hedley Byrne case.

RS

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Andrew Botterell  
Sent: 18 November 2008 15:37
To: Andrew Tettenborn
Subject: Re: interference with property

It's a nice case. But I can imagine my students objecting as follows: suppose through your negligence your football lands in my back yard. And suppose I refuse to allow you to take it back (perhaps I think it poses a hazard to children playing nearby). I do allow you to play with it on my land, however, under my supervision, and while I allow you to do whatever you want to it – paint it, deflate it, what have you – I won't allow you to take it home with you. Aren't my actions inconsistent with your rights to the football? True, you are welcome to your football, in the sense that you can play with it (albeit under my supervision), but of course you can't go anywhere with it. But surely that is one mark of ownership. So it seems to me that I have done something that is inconsistent with your title to the football. And I'm not sure how this case differs from Club Cruise Entertainment.

Maybe it will be said that in my football case there was a taking of possession, so that I'm guilty of a trespass to chattels. But surely I didn't take it in any ordinary sense: I didn't actively take it from you, and since it found its way onto my land as a result of your negligence I'm not at fault for its being there either.  

Any thoughts?

<<<< Previous Message  ~  Index  ~  Next Message >>>>>